EXPECTATIONS VS REALITY

We all make goals for ourselves throughout the year, but New Year's is the biggest time to make goals. We all try to better ourselves in ways we didn’t complete in the previous years. Some take this tradition very seriously and push themselves to finish their goals, while others sometimes just do it to make themselves feel better or because it’s a “trend”.

I emailed the student body to get their goals for the new year of 2025. I feel like not a lot of people responded because of how early I sent the email, not a lot of people think about their goals until the last week of December or even the day of the New Year. I asked four questions, my first question was if you have a new goal for this upcoming year. Out of 30 responses, 66.7% said Yes, and 33.3% said No. My second question was about your new goal for 2025. The top goal for this year was sports/fitness. Many people wanted to get to a certain weight or lift a certain amount of pounds. The top goal for last year, saving money at 59% and exercising more, was only 50%. I feel like exercising more is going to be the top goal for 2025. But keeping with your goals is difficult, that’s why I asked if you kept up with your 2024 goal throughout the year, and if not, what time of the year did you quit. 20.7% said yes to keeping their goal of 2024 throughout the year which is pretty big for the amount of people that replied to the email. More people, however, said they didn't complete it with a percentage of 31%. I feel like as a high schooler it is more difficult to keep up with our goals for the new year, because for me at least, it’s easy to fall back into old habits. Something that I thought was interesting was that most of the student body “kind of” accomplished their goal of 2024. When I think of “kind of” finishing your goal for the New Year I think of improving the goal but not getting what you want for this year. Like, let's say you want to lift a certain weight but you only get to half of that or just slowly getting there and you keep trying and trying but just can’t get to that goal.

 PIECHART OF THE STUDENT BODY'S ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT RESOLUTIONS; JULIETA ORTIZ

I just think we all try to get better each year in many different ways. It could just be getting by the year and that’s enough as is, or fully accomplishing your goal. Either way we all want to better ourselves, and making goals is a good way to do so. The Anchor wishes everyone a wonderful and safe New Year!